Desperation
by WisdomState
Summary: One-shot. Set POST 3.03 - A reckless situation has arisen for the ill-fated Edith Crawley after an uncharacteristic act of desperation.


**A/N: **Here I go again, with my terrible Edith x Anthony smut.

Despite it being complete tosh, I did try and write it all as tastefully as I could - the idea here _was_ to write something a little more raunchy (I really do think she would be a screamer...) than I normally would with these two - in light of the fact that this is all a personal protest to Julian Fellowes and what he has done to my OTP.

Please don't critique me too harshly on this, but by all means, if you have some helpful hints or comments, please go for it.

Also. In case you hadn't noticed - SPOILERS FOR EPISODES UP TO AND INCLUDING 3.03.

Disclaimer: I also don't own any of the characters, places, or names in Downton Abbey - although no doubt I would treat them better than their current owner.

* * *

_Desperation_

She writhed underneath him.

God, did he love it when she did that.

His name was on her lips every time she breathed out, like music to his ears.

Edith knew how much she affected him, even when he was supposedly the one doing the work, just those sighs and strangled moans reminded him of the real degree to which she had control.

When she finally let loose with her vocalizations, the older man had to force himself to stay composed enough not to finish right then and there.

As long white legs wrapped around him, he braced himself against the headboard and pushed her back into the pile of pillows supporting her bare back, pushing into her again and again with increasing vigor.

She cried out, her thin, elegant fingers gripping the pillow at her head.

He loved the way her curls spilled out onto the white fabric of the pillowcase, brilliant even in the dim light of the provided by the few lanterns still on around them.

Then her eyes opened, and she looked sidelong at him. Her normally dark brown eyes were made even darker by desire, the emotion behind that one look causing the man to stop in his place.

He throbbed, ached to continue, but her hypnotic stare kept him transfixed.

And then, slowly, her arms reached up for him, reaching out, beckoning.

Her lips parted, her breathing still irregular. She sighed, forming the words: "I love you, Anthony."

...

Her body arched and twisted in pleasure.

She couldn't help the little noises she made - the pleasure of it all, each new wave with each new thrust, nearly drove her to madness. She was certain it was possible to die for feeling so much, so good, all at once. The only reason she still lived was for fear of never having a like experience again.

Realizing that there was no longer any point in holding herself back - if he was looking, if he was going to see her like this as he had done before, she might as well let go the rest of her inhibitions. Deep, heady sighs turned into throaty moans as she felt his impossibly hard, smooth skin sliding in and out of her at a quickening pace.

Then, she felt something explosive - something she had never felt before.

It was as though her eyes were closed - and all she could see was white light. Her fingers clutched the nearest thing to her, a pillow, and she let out a cry. Loud. Loving. Absolutely dripping with desire.

Forcing her eyes open, the young woman looked up at the man eliciting such unladylike noises. Much to her surprise, he stilled when his eyes fell upon hers.

The only words she could formulate were the ones that came out of her mouth before they had a chance to run past the filter she normally had for such comments.

"I love you, Anthony."

She was sure he knew it. Still. She had put on a good face for the family, but she had been hurting every day since that same man had left her at the altar. If she hadn't missed him, loved him so dearly still, Edith doubted very much she would ever have found herself in this position. Mary would have been more measured, more cold. Mary would have gotten over him by now.

But Edith Crawley was far from "over" the gentleman that now looked on her with a face so full of love, that she felt suddenly embarrassed by her state of undress.

His blue eyes pierced hers.

"Lady Edith, I-" He still couldn't drop the title. Not now. He owed her too much respect. Respect for behaving so callously at what was almost their wedding ; respect forever, because even after the wrong he had done her, she still forgave him.

He would love her until the day he died.

"I will love you, always." He couldn't hide the truth from her, she deserved so much more than that.

He hardly knew why he was still doing this - had he not done enough damage to the lovely young woman beneath him? Loved her, yes, but left her for the war, and then again at the altar.

All for love.

Love that she insisted she needed from him.

And when she looked at him, like she was then, he could only relinquish everything he had to her. His sweet, unmarried, tainted, Edith Crawley.

He pulled her roughly up over his hips, her legs hiking up further on his body. He slid a pillow under her lower back and rear as he trailed his left hand over her face. "Will you regret this?" He asked.

She looked at him squarely, making an attempt at incredulousness without much success. "Regret? No, never. Just... please, don't stop." The last few words were charged with an urgency he understood only too well.

Bracing himself above her, his hand just above her pale shoulder, he continued burying himself into her. His breathing became ragged instantly. Her cries became more frequent. Anthony felt himself sliding deeper and deeper into her wetness with every thrust, and he could feel himself on the edge.

He groaned, and pushed himself into her fiercely, slowly, filling her completely before finding his release.

The pressure point he had found kept her breathing heavy, and when those last thrusts came, Edith knew she was done for. Her arms draped over his neck and pulled him on top of her - despite supporting his full weight she needed to have him close while she pulled him to her with her legs, believing she could feel an added slick of heat between their bodies, where they were still most unceremoniously connected. She screamed, feeling for the first time what her mother had once tried to kindly put - the most tremendous fun.

And more.

Innately satisfied as well, she tried to slow her heart and breathing to normal while Anthony still panted above her. He buried his face in her hair, taking in her sweet smell, and the feeling of her cheek - wet with perspiration - against his as he kissed her there, at the corner of her mouth, her lips, until he began pressing slow, gentle kisses everywhere.

She was incredibly touched.

Turning her face up to his, she found his lips and sighed into them.

"Oh, Anthony..." She paused, their lips seeking out the other's taste. "How did this happen?" She breathed, her teeth grazing his lower lip. He held back a strangled growl and he felt his own guilt like a shot - not unlike the wound that had pierced his arm and had arguably been the beginning of the end. Their end.

He rolled over, and they separated, a rush of cold air blasting their beaded bodies the moment they lay on their backs apart.

Edith frowned.

She followed him, pulling his damaged arm straight out and resting her head on his scarred shoulder. Draping her arm across his chest and wrapping a leg around him, she breathed in his scent. _Their_ scent. "That was a serious question, you know." She said lazily.

He exhaled deeply, covering his eyes with his left hand and squeezing the bridge of his nose in thought.

"I know, darling, I-"

"You love me." Edith said, the statement in clear point-of-fact.

Dropping his hand, he looked down at her with clear eyes. "I do."

"Then you know what my next question is."

"Lady Edith, I -"

"Edith. Please. At least when we're like this." If their state of undress couldn't convince him of their intimacy, nothing could, she thought.

Anthony smiled despite himself, and chuckled. "Edith, I... I walked away because I love you too much to see you tied to an old, injured man like me for the rest of _my_ life." The emphasis on his own age hurt them both.

The young woman raised herself up on one arm and looked at him squarely. "And it was _your_ decision then, to decide if I wanted to spend my time happy, like this, with you, for the rest of _your_ days?" Anthony flinched. Edith continued: "What gave you the right? After everything I went through to have you back. I love you, Anthony Strallan - and you're so bloody blind to that, that you expected me to feel sorry for myself for marrying you."

He didn't know what to say.

"And pardon me for swearing." She added, a faint blush creeping across her already rosy cheeks.

Anthony groaned at her painfully adorable expression; even when flustered and a little cross she managed to cause his greatest tensions and troubles to ease. He kissed her, using his left hand to bring her face close to his. "No matter which way you turn it, I am in the wrong." He admitted sadly.

"I know." She said lightly, trying to mask the hurt in her voice unsuccessfully.

"But I can't understand - even after all of that you sought me out to, well, for this - "

Edith laughed dryly. "If I had known you'd become a lover instead of a husband, I still would have been devastated." She sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I never knew a body could feel like you just made me feel-" Her eyelids fluttered as a spark of desire flared deep in her belly. "But I only gained half of what I sought out to get."

"You still want to marry me." He said incredulously.

Edith bit her lip, and looked down. "I don't know..." She said after a moment, her tone loaded with uncertainty and sadness.

"I don't know because, how will it look if I marry you after what happened? I'm already a disappointment to my family, how will they react to me crawling back to you as I have done? My self worth was low enough in that household as it was... and how do I know you won't do the same thing again?" She added the last sentence extremely quietly, and it took him a moment to realize what she said. When he did, his heart broke all over again.

"Edith," He said firmly, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "I gave you up because I felt I didn't deserve you. I always felt that. And I tried to give you up - and I did, in the most terrible way possible." He paused, the look of lasting pain in her eyes causing him to draw breath for both strength of body and of heart. "I thought I had done it in a way that would make sure that we would never have to meet again. And then you came to me, insisting that you would not be denied what you wanted - I did not know you meant... I never meant to..."

"I needed you." She said, her lips turned downward, and she could feel the familiar sting of tears pooling in her eyes.

He sighed, and pulled her down onto his chest once more, pressing his lips to hers with all the love and apology he could muster. As he lost his fingers into the tangled mass of soft curls on her head, he tasted tears - though he was no longer sure if they were hers or his own.

Love was such a terribly complicated emotion.

Reluctantly, they pulled away from one another, yet remained unwilling to separate completely as her forehead came to rest against his. Her shoulders quivered as tears fell silently down her cheeks. His hand dropped from her hair and rested gently on her naked back, gently tracing comforting circles there - which, naturally only made her cry a little harder.

"How could we let this happen... I... I was so ready to marry you." She sobbed.

He watched her with his heartbeat almost unbearably loud in his ears. Anthony didn't know what to do - he already felt like this was all in his head, his delusions finally becoming unable to differentiate from real life under the stress of being so in love - and in so much pain; all the while, knowing himself to be forever parted from the woman he loved so desperately. He knew that was part of the problem, too. She had been ready to marry _someone_, and he hadn't been convinced that it was supposed to be him.

The two of them had talked about it that first time Edith came to him, demanding tearfully, angrily, why he had crushed her so publicly, breaking her for the rest of her life.

He didn't know what to say then either, and in that moment of indecision they both had the idea to throw all pride and inhibitions to the wind, the memory of their first real kiss and subsequent clandestine affair haunting him as she cried then, softly on his chest.

Anthony knew she was replaying the same kiss over in her mind, how their lips had crashed against one another in desperation as she threw her arms around him. How he held her, as she had longed for him to do on their wedding night, unafraid of what she would think of the older man who had fallen in love with such a young, beautiful woman.

"But who will marry me now?" Edith laughed bitterly after a moment, sending a new wave of painful tears through the older man's heart as her words pulled him out of his memories. "When I've been so in love, so in love and callous. Not pure, in any sense of the word." It was almost accusatory, though he knew that she meant all the offense to herself. Edith had always been funny, and terribly sad that way. She could blame herself for almost anything, and he had wanted to take her away from all that. Away from her family. Away, where she could have been with him - so loved. So, so very loved.

"We were desperate." He said finally, sighing to the air that was still thick with the smell of their union.

"So..." She began, her tears finally ebbing. "That only brings us back to where we had been before - where is this going?"

Heaving a deep sigh, Anthony could only offer her more of the truth. He knew it went against everything he had tried to accomplish by leaving her on their wedding day - stepping backwards, and further into her - but he couldn't lie anymore.

"I love you." He said simply, honestly. The emotion behind it cause the young woman laying on him to pull herself closer into his embrace, burying her face in the space between shoulder and neck. "And I love you so, so terribly much..." She whispered, feeling herself on the verge of tears again.

"Would you marry me, Lady Edith?" He whispered as he pressed kisses into her hair. "Truly, I cannot bear the thought of you being miserable ever again." And as he said it, he pushed away all his previous fears about the remainder of his life - which would seem to end so soon for her. But if he were being honest with himself, it had also been because he felt he could never have enough time with _her._

She froze in his arms, for hearing those words uttered again still had the same effect on her as the first time - complete, unbridled joy that now, she was almost embarrassed to feel for the man who had broken her heart more than once. This time, however, it was different.

They had surrendered to passion too many times. Too many times had they met behind the closed doors of his bed chamber, or in a private room at a London inn. Too many times had he seen her bare and completely exposed before him, wanting him, as he wanted her. They had crossed beyond the point of no return, their affair was not without care, and could not be treated as something that it was possible to simply cut off when the relationship was no longer feasible.

They had long passed the point of no return, since they realized that when not in each other's arms, their greatest wish was to be there again, skin against skin in the most tender, passionate embrace they ever expected to feel.

Edith finally relaxed, and pushed herself up onto an arm to look at him bravely.

"Are you asking me for real, this time?" She asked, determination in her eyes masking the obvious hurt that came with the inquiry.

Anthony merely nodded, never taking his eyes off her.

"When?" Was her surprising reply, a hopeful smile pulling at the corners of her lips. Anthony couldn't control the wave of relief that washed over him, or the pride that made him feel like his heart would explode if she continued looking at him as she was.

"Whenever you like, my sweet one." He replied breathlessly, feeling faint from sheer delight.

"Oh," She began, the smile never leaving her lips. "Please can it be soon? I don't care about preparations, or guests, or even if my family _knows_.. I just want to be free to love you. Properly."

_I want to be free to love you. _He decided that those were his new favourite words.

He chuckled, and wrapped his arm around her slim waist and he kissed her.

"Soon. Any day. Name the date and I'll make it happen."

"Thursday." She said offhandedly, returning his kiss with a cheeky grin.

"That's in three days." He said with mild amusement.

"You asked me."

They looked at each other with such admiration that they both began laughing irrepressibly. He kissed her mouth, and her cheek, and as his kisses began trailing down her neck she pushed away from him and met his inquisitive expression with a stern one. "Are you sure this time? Really, truly sure?" She asked.

Anthony's eyes softened, and the kiss he laid on her lips was one she had never felt before in her life - even from him. Almost unbearably tender. And so full of love. "Positive. Darling, if you want to spend your time with me, however long I have the good fortune to be alive and well, I would be honored. You know now how sorry I am for attempting to make that choice for you."

This seemed to placate the strawberry blonde that was now absentmindedly trailing her fingers over his bare collarbone. "It's about time." She sighed, smiling.

"Then Thursday it is." He answered.

As their fond looks turned into gentle caresses, and tender touches began to make their hearts race yet again, Anthony muttered into her lips: "You're not going to make me stay away from you until Thursday, are you?" Edith laughed, rolling onto her back and pulling him with her.

"No, you fool. I won't let you out of my sight, if I can help it."

"Thank Heaven." He replied, his hand roaming her chest and stomach with complete reverence.

_Yes, thank Heaven for you. _Edith thought, unaware that the gentleman above her was thinking the exact same thought at that very moment.

Desperation had always been something Edith felt guilty for, especially where her family was concerned. But as they continued to love each other, losing themselves in their new found happiness, she silently thanked whatever God allowed her desperation to lead her to this, and finally, to happiness.


End file.
